1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a diagnostic system for a removable media drive and, more particularly, to systems and methods for generating diagnostic information for the removable media drive.
2. Related Art
Computer disks and disk drives are typically expected to remain available and operational for significant lengths of time. Since disk drives may have moving parts and other mechanical, electrical and optical components that are subject to fail over time, it is desirable to monitor and track their use and operability. An industry standard technology called SMART (Self Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology) has been established in order to estimate the remaining lifetime of a hard disk. However, the SMART technology has been applied to hard disk drives, or non-removable, magnetic drives that typically provide computers with an operating system. Optical drives, which have electronic, mechanical, and other key components, such as the laser diode and the inserted media, that may be subject to failure over time, have not been monitored or tracked. As such, the lifetime of optical drives is unknown. Without any historical data, it is not possible to estimate the drive wear and remaining lifetime for the drive of a removable media.
Accordingly, a need exists to obtain reliable information about the drive wear and the remaining lifetime of the media drive.